Yet the sport grew so popular, as it did in many New Mexico mining towns, that Silver City ushered in a new era of competition in 1887: Burlesque baseball, featuring contests between the “Fats” and “Leans” of the community. The thin fellows, known as Slim Jims, wore white suits decorated with skulls and crossbones, and carried dudish canes. The fat fellows, appropriately called Fat Fellows, wore suits bearing decorative beer mugs.

The nines marched to the baseball diamond to music headed by Prof. Langer’s band and Drum Major Fritsch. But the teams’ humor extended far beyond the uniforms. “The ice wagon was on hand rigged up as an ambulance and stationed at third base with a plentiful supply of beer which the jolly teuton who handled the lines dealt to the players who reached that goal. He was uniformed as a Dutch peasant, with wooden shoes, and wore a government cap,” reported the Silver City Enterprise on August 26, 1887.

A gift of beer when you hit third base? That brings new meaning to a “drinking game.”

An umpire armed with a “big revolver” officiated the game, and the Slim Jims thought they would win by tiring out the big guys. They were mistaken. “The pitcher and catcher of the big men ‘did the business,’ and the muscle of the monsters sent the balls away over the heads of the fellows of match-like form,” the paper reported. The Fat Fellows won by a score of 20 to 6.

Communities entertained themselves with stage plays, parades, benevolent societies, and clubs. Andrew Lytle stands at the back of a group of men dressed for a burlesque baseball game, about 1895. The group poses on the front porch of the Lytle home